10 Lessons From Steve Jobs That Every Marketer Must Learn

Steve Jobs led the greatest turnaround in corporate history, taking a near-bankrupt Apple and turning it into one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world ... but he didn't look that great on paper. He wasn't an engineer. He couldn't write a line of code. He didn't have an MBA. He had no college degree at all. He wasn't a great manager, in the conventional sense. When it came to the bureaucratic aspects of running an organization, he was useless.

So what made him great? His gift, simply put, was marketing. In the words of Guy Kawasaki, who worked under Jobs at Apple: "Steve was the greatest marketer ever." Here are 10 marketing lessons you can learn from him.

1) Find good mentors.

Jobs may have been a genius, but he was also smart enough to find people he could learn from. One of his first tutors was Regis McKenna, a legendary Silicon Valley marketer. Jobs sought him out even while Apple was still just a two-man operation in a garage. McKenna helped Jobs bring on Mike Markkula as Apple’s first angel investor and marketing guru. Markkula was an engineer by training but had worked in marketing at Intel. He joined Apple as an employee (for a time he was CEO) and created a set of founding marketing principles to which Apple still adheres today, 35 years later.

Later, Jobs befriended advertising expert Lee Clow of TBWA\Chiat\Day, who created Apple’s famous 1984 commercial and “Think Different” campaign. Clow became a lifelong advisor and friend to Jobs. Lesson: No matter how good you are, learn how to spot people who know more than you do, and then listen to them.

2) Make a great product.

Kawasaki, who worked as an evangelist at Apple, says, "What Steve did that few marketers understand is that he first created a great product. It's hard to market crap. Most marketers take whatever crap is thrown at them and put lipstick on the pig. Steve's 'secret' was to control the product and the marketing, not just the marketing."

3) Stand for something.

When The Apple Computer Company launched in 1977, Jobs and Markkula outlined three core company principles. First, Apple would empathize with customers. Second, Apple would focus on doing a few things really well. Third, Apple would impute its values (simplicity, high quality) across everything it did -- not just within the products themselves, but also through the packaging of products, the look of its stores, and even the way Apple created press releases.

Jobs did a remarkable thing at Apple by insisting on a consistency of design and taste across everything Apple did. Think that's easy? Look at your company's website. Do all the sections look like they were made by the same invisible hand? Or does the site look like a digital Frankenstein monster, with different sections cobbled together that all bear the look and feel of whoever happened to make those pages when that part of the site was built? And even if your website looks consistent, does it mesh with your press releases? With your storefront? Your trucks? Your product packaging? That unity is exactly what Jobs pulled off.

4) Spend money.

Jobs was a natural showman and a fan of big gestures. One great example was the 1984 commercial for the new Macintosh. As always, Jobs decided to go big. He hired Ridley Scott, the director of Alien and Blade Runner, and spent $900,000 making the 60-second spot and $800,000 to run it one time during the Super Bowl. (That $1.7 million spend would be $3.4 million today.) This was a huge risk for the company, especially since it wasn't clear that the ad would succeed. In fact, Apple’s board hated the ad so much they didn’t want to run it at all.

But the big bet paid off. The ad generated as much coverage as the Macintosh itself.

5) Create experiences.

Apple described the 1984 commercial as a form of “event marketing,” meaning a campaign where the promotion itself is so revolutionary or unique that it gets covered as an event in its own right. Soon after the 1984 commercial, Jobs pulled something similar when he spent $2.5 million to buy the entire 40-page advertising hole in an edition of Newsweek. Other examples of event marketing were the “Think Different” and “I’m a Mac” campaigns. Yet another: every keynote Jobs ever did, with fans lining up overnight as if they were going to a Beatles reunion.

Jean-Louis Gassee, a former executive at Apple whose roles included running worldwide marketing, says Jobs understood the importance of storytelling, and used it again and again in things like the "I'm a Mac, You're a PC" campaign. "We all want stories," Gassee says. "That's why there is so much whining about Apple and [CEO Tim] Cook right now. No story."

6) Keep secrets and build mystery.

The reason people lined up at Apple events, aside from Jobs' rock-star charisma, was that he was a master of suspense and surprise, and there was always the hope that he might unveil something amazing. Months before a big product launch, Apple would start leaking information. First a hint, then a rumor, then other rumors that contradicted the first rumor. Most of it was misinformation, but it drove people into a frenzy of speculation.

By the time Jobs got up and showed off the iPhone, the world had been buzzing about it for a year, with people passing around photos of supposed prototypes and designers creating their own imaginary versions of what an Apple phone might look like. Jobs was also famous for his "One more thing" gesture, where, just when you thought a press conference was over, he'd say, "Oh, one more thing," and then pull out something that blew everyone away. The lesson: Most marketers rush out to tell everyone as much as they can about their product. Jobs did the opposite -- he held back information to get people excited.

7) Find an enemy.

The first rule of storytelling is that drama requires conflict. And the first rule of propaganda is that you need to have a bad guy. For Apple the original bad guy was IBM. Then the boogeyman became Microsoft. More recently, Jobs made Google and its Android operating system the villain. In each case, Jobs’ message was the same: The bad guy wants to take over the world and destroy it, and we are the noble underdog that can keep this from happening. (Check out this great clip of Jobs painting IBM as an evil empire that “wants it all,” that will create “an IBM-dominated and controlled future” while Apple is “the only hope” and “the only force that can ensure … freedom.”)

A lot of marketers shy away from this kind of rhetoric. They’re afraid it will rebound and hurt them. They act, very often, like needy children who want very much to be loved by everyone. To be sure, it’s definitely risky to create an enemy, especially if you choose an enemy that's big and powerful. But Jobs believed that to sell product you had to first lead a movement. If you’re going to have a revolution, you need to have something or someone to rebel against.

8) Turn customers into evangelists.

Possibly the biggest thing Jobs did was turn customers into passionate advocates for the Apple brand. Those people who line up outside Apple stores every time there's a new iPhone? Even when it's just an incremental improvement on the last iPhone? They're not there for the phone. They've come to show their support for the team, the way sports fans show up hours before a game wearing the team colors. Apple fans don't think of themselves as customers. They feel as if they're part of a movement, a mission, something larger than themselves.

9) Don’t talk about products.

The 1984 commercial contains not a single image of the Macintosh. There’s a mention of Apple and the Macintosh in the last 10 seconds. Same for “Think Different,” where the ads weren’t about products but rather the kind of people who would use the products. In the “I’m a Mac” campaign Jobs removed the computers and replaced them with people -- two characters who serve as proxies for two different kinds of computers. Or consider the ad just below here, which you'll note doesn't contain a picture of a computer.

10) Use pictures, not words.

The ad above contains 10 words. Even today, on its website and in its advertising, Apple devotes tremendous effort to saying things in as few words as possible. Partly that’s aligning with the core value of simplicity at Apple. But it’s also because Jobs realized that images are much more powerful storytellers.

My favorite example of this was the introduction of the MacBook Air, where Jobs came out on stage with a manila envelope and slid the slim laptop out of it. There's a video of it just below. Listen to the crowd when he does this. That one simple gesture blew people away and said more about the product than thousands of words could.

Or look at this recent ad for the iPhone's camera. First of all, the ad is about only a single aspect of the iPhone -- its camera. And the only marketing message in the entire 60-second spot is a five-second voice-over at the end that contains 13 words: “Every day, more photos are taken with the iPhone than any other camera.”

Or look at this one for the iPhone, featuring only its abilities as a music player. The ad has only 14 words in the last few seconds of a one-minute spot: “Every day, more people enjoy their music on the iPhone than any other phone.”

We all know the saying that “less is more.” And I suspect most of us completely agree with the sentiment, especially when it comes to words. So why don’t we do it? Probably because it’s hard work. As Mark Twain once said, “If I had more time, I’d write shorter.”

That may be the ultimate lesson about Steve Jobs -- that a great deal of his success came from the fact that he was willing to take more time and work a little harder than most of us mere mortals.

Enlightening article but about Lesson number 2, "Steve's 'secret' was to control the product and the marketing, not just the marketing," however if you are an international company producing by many products in many countries, how can effectively build a global company brand and offering if marketing is decentralized?

Great article and I very much agree with 5) Create experiences.
Mind you, I'd never thought of point 7) Find an enemy as something to actively use......and I run a marketing company.
You never stop learning!

It is a pity that Steve Jobs is no longer here, but what an inspiration to continue to learn lessons from what he has already done. I watched every video on here. Thank you!

Bobbi

It's also worth mentioning that Jobs had a really great product to work with. Excellent marketing isn't worth much if it's essentially smoke and mirrors, and the actual product or program doesn't live up to the hype.
One of the most important pieces of advice on this list, IMO, is finding great mentors -- perhaps easier said than done, but absolutely critical. These experienced pros do a lot more than guide and teach -- they can also provide the connections and introductions to other pros to help you build a network of contacts and colleagues.

These tips are dead on. I think you offer more meaningful ideas here than you would get from completing a Masters program in marketing. Dan this topic is a lifelong passion of mine yet I don't think I could add a thing. Well done!

Great article.
Steve Jobs also had a great talent for thinking about things in different contexts and asking why or if a product had to have a specific shape or design.
It makes me wonder if one of Apple's brainstorm sessions about a new iPod design years ago started down the road of "what else could it do?" ...and... before you knew it someone said, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if you could make phone calls on it." Then, the brainstorm turned about 140 degrees to go somewhere they never expected.

I hold Jobs in high esteem. What I value most about him, few ever seem to recognize. He understood secrets... some shared here, most can never be shared, only eluded to, or better yet, experienced...
And that is precisely what he knew... it has to be experienced.
He took a system that runs virtual code integrated with physical machinery and made it experiential to the human... He took the matrix, and made it colors, and sounds, and motion.
The graphic user interface is as eyes are to the frequencies of light or ears to the frequencies of sound.
Without the organs of perception, it is just frequencies passing through the vastness of space, and without a GUI a computer is just a machine.
Steve brought the machine to life... the rest is recursive of that.

Thanks for the great article. I love studying Steve Jobs mostly because he was so unorthodox. I think one important take away from Jobs that isn't mentioned here is his reliance on intuition.
From the Isaacson biography
"Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work."

I just finished Steve Jobs' biography. Definitely not what I expected, but completely intriguing. His near-psychotic passion and ruthless drive for merging technology and design changed our world for the better.

Great post about a great man with great ideas. I love Apple's simplicity, and try to aim for it in my company's marketing, but Hubspot's blogging software always yells at me for not having enough words!

This is very useful article but finding an enemy is the most critical task.Market always is full of competitors but select the most appropriate competitor is on your own hands.Marketers should follow these guidelines but also focus on market situations.Thanks

Thanks for the article; not only is marketing my profession - I'm a total marketing junkie - I agree with all 10 points in the article -- will apply as many as I can --- although Superbowl commercials ... not in my company's future.
Again, Hubspot articles are always my first read, when I see them in my in-box.
Thank you.
robin@dmtraining.net

Jake

On a personal level, Steve jobs was a douche. Despite all the gushing I'm reading here, I suspect that if people actually spent time with him- especially working with/for him- they would discover that their ultimate reaction to him would be an overwhelming desire to administer an ass-kicking.
It's not arguable that he had a singular gift for branding and marketing.
Let's just try to remember that he stepped on many, many people getting to where he was- friends, colleagues, family- no one was exempt.
Read his biography; it was written by a guy who didn't consult with Steve on its content, and it will open your eyes.

I loved what Steve Jobs was doing for Apple. I hope the company can continue his legacy.

rob

one thing that i've always found ironic, is that the tv ad refers to the big brother, something like "break the chain" kind of deal, however they are doing exactly the opposite by closing everything that they can think of... and how to forget the macboys which act exactly like the zombies/prisoners/whatever-they-are in the ad, not thinking by themselves just waiting to buy whatever apple has to offer....

I still love the "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" commercials. Much to be learned from Jobs. Thanks for pulling all these key points together!

Daniel

Great article here. Great job!
Ever since I got this article here, I've been reading it once everyday.
Steve Job's life was and still is very impactful. It's really changing me positively. I follow most of his steps because who you follow determines what follows you.
Positively lived lives impart other lives positively.

Edna

Kudos! This a good read and Inspiration. Been an apple product user since 1993, have never stopped appreciating every new product and technology they come out. Unique as always.. Steve Jobs has a great mind :)

Arthur

Very beautiful article. I have watched tons of documentaries on Steve Jobs. He continues to be a great inspiration. I often wonder what the tech world would be like today if he was still around.

Enjoyed reading this article! Truly mind boggling and attention grabbing lessons learned from Steve Jobs! I especially like the part where you have to look for mentors. It made me think of people who to befriend whom I can also learn from in matters of marketing strategically for my continued growth as an individual.

The quote from Mark Twain, “If I had more time, I’d write shorter” really puts this entire article into perspective. Often times, the reality of something is too complex. Storytelling crafts a message that simplifies the complexity of something by relating it to people/places/things in the context of our society. Steve Jobs and Apple turned something that many people would see as complex into something straightforward and simplistic.

Really guys, your content is always worth reading, I just finished reading "40% of your article goes down the drain" then this, ... every word, phrase and paragraph is worth reading.
Keep up the good work.

Great post. Totally agree with the importance of good mentors. Essential and beneficial for anyone who wishes to improve and learn from the best. Spend money. This should be tattooed on the foreheads of the Bean counters who always seem to want more for less when it comes to setting marketing budgets. Find the enemy and then keep them close. Know and understand what they are up to in the market place. And then go out and do it better.
Very informative. Thanks.